Iran to partake in WTF Grand Slam with 7 athletes

TEHRAN, Dec. 10 (MNA) – Iran will deploy seven athletes to china to take part at a brand-new event dubbed as the World Taekwondo Grand Slam Champions Series.

The first edition of the Grand Slam series, featuring eight tournaments, will kick off at the end of 2017 and continue through early 2018 in Wuxi, China.

The national Iranian taekwondo team will consist of seven athletes in both men’s and women’s divisions of the sportive extravaganza to be hosted by the Chinese city of Wuxi on December 23-24.

As such, Nahid Kiani and Zahra Pouresmaeili will represent Iran in the women’s section while the country’s hopes in the men’s category will be pinned on Sajad Mardani, Farza Ashourzadeh, Abolfazl Yaghoubi, Armin Hadipour as well as Ebrahim Safari.

As announced by WTF, for the 2017/2018 Grand Slam, the invited athletes in each tournament/category will be the Rio 2016 Olympic gold medalist, and two gold medalists from the 2017 World Taekwondo, champion of the Grand-Prix Final in December 2017; the three winners of the Grand-Prix Series held earlier in 2017; as well as the winner of the 2016 Grand-Prix Final.

The winner in each tournament/weight category of this year will takes home USD 70,000; the silver medalist USD 20,000; and the bronze medalist USD 10,000.The series is invitational, and will bring together twelve premier athletes in each tournament/weight category.